PREACHING-SUFFERING
There
is no special honor in preaching, there is only special pain. The pulpit calls
those anointed to it as the sea calls its sailors. And like the sea, it batters
and bruises and does not rest. To preach, to really preach is to die naked a
little at a time and to know each time you do it that you must do it again.
Bruce Theilman
If a preacher
leaves his people where they are, seeking satisfaction in family and job and
leisure and toys and sex and money and food and power and esteem, when
suffering and death strip it all away they will be embittered and angry and
depressed. And the worth and beauty and
goodness and power and wisdom of God, the glory of God, will vanish in the
cloud of murmuring, complaining, and cursing.
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 246.
We must aim
to preach in such a way that we breed a kind of people who feel loved not when
they are made much of, but when they are patiently helped to enjoy making much
of God, even when they themselves are slandered, ridiculed, persecuted, and
killed.
John Piper
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 262.
People are
not prepared or able to rejoice in suffering unless they experience a massive
biblical revolution of how they think and feel about the meaning of life. Human nature and American culture make it
impossible to rejoice in suffering. This
is a miracle in the human soul wrought by God through His Word.
John Piper
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 258.
When a
preacher preaches with joy (in the midst of) suffering, the people will see
Christ for the infinite value that He is, and, seeing, will cherish Him above
all things and thus be changed from one degree of glory to the next. The glory of God will be magnified in the
church and in the world, and the great aim of preaching will be achieved.
John Piper
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 257.
God has
ordained that our preaching become deeper and more winsome as we are broken,
humbled, and made low and desperately dependent on grace by the trials of our
lives.
John Piper
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 259.
It belongs to
your calling of God as a minister, that you should have a taste of the various
spiritual trials which are incident to the Lord’s people, that thereby you
may…know how to speak a word in season to them that are weary; and it is
likewise needful to keep you perpetually attentive to that important
admonition, “Without Me ye can do nothing.”
John Newton
The Works of John Newton, v. 1, p. 255.
If Jesus preached the same message minister's preach
today, He would have never been crucified.
If any man
will preach as he should preach, his work will take more out of him than any
other labor under heaven.
C.H. Spurgeon
A crucified
Savior can be preached in divine power only by crucified preachers.
Raymond
C. Ortlund Jr.
Pastoral Pensées: Power in Preaching: Decide (1
Corinthians 2:1-5), Themelios, April 2009. Used by
Permission of Gospel Coalition.
Fits of
depression come over the most of us. Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down. The
strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always
courageous, and the joyous not always happy.
C.H. Spurgeon
When a Preacher is Downcast.
Sunday, A.M.,
May 5
Preached in St. Anne’s. Was asked not to come back anymore.
Sunday, P.M.,
May 5
Preached in St. John’s. Deacons said “Get out and stay out.”
Sunday, A.M.,
May 12
Preached in St. Jude’s. Can’t go back there, either.
Sunday, A.M.,
May 19
Preached in St. Somebody Else’s. Deacons called special meeting and said I
couldn’t return.
Sunday, P.M.,
May 19
Preached on street. Kicked off street.
Sunday, A.M.,
May 26
Preached in meadow. Chased out of meadow as bull was turned
loose during service.
Sunday, A.M.,
June 2
Preached out at the edge of town. Kicked off the highway.
Sunday, P.M.,
June 2
Afternoon, preached in a pasture. Ten thousand people came out to hear me.
From his Diary